In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-211044, a technology is described, in which a soft X-ray is irradiated onto a wafer waiting for dicing, thereby removing the electricity of the wafer in order to prevent the corrosion of electrodes due to the reaction between ions of water supplied during dicing and the electrodes formed on the wafer, and then dicing of the wafer is performed.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 05-259275, the following technology is described. That is, in order to prevent broken pieces made by breakage and crack of a wafer in a dicing process from adhering to a surface (element forming surface) of the wafer, a temporary fixing sheet is attached to the surface of the wafer. Then, the surface side of the wafer to which the temporary fixing sheet is attached is directed downward and an infrared ray is irradiated thereto by an infrared lamp from below. Next, after the infrared ray transmitted through the wafer is detected by an infrared camera provided on the rear surface side of the wafer to recognize the patterns of semiconductor elements, scrub lines are formed on the rear surface of the wafer with a diamond cutter.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 09-017752 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 5,972,154), a technology is described, in which an ultraviolet irradiating device is provided in front of a blade, adhesive force between a dicing tape and a wafer is reduced by an ultraviolet ray irradiated from the ultraviolet irradiating device, and then an area where the adhesive force is reduced is diced with the blade.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 06-232255, a technology is described, in which a wafer surface (element forming surface) is directed downward and an infrared ray is irradiated from a rear surface side of a wafer (upper side). Then, the irradiated infrared ray is detected using an infrared camera to recognize circuit patterns formed on the surface of the wafer and perform the alignment. Thereafter, the dicing is performed.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 11-297644, a technology is described, in a method of dicing a wafer adhered to an adhesive tape with a blade, an ultraviolet ray is irradiated on the blade in the dicing so as to reduce the stickiness of an adhesive paste adhering to the blade, thereby easily removing the adhesive paste from the blade.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 11-274114 (corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 6,153,043), a technology for preventing the dissolution or corrosion of a metal conductor caused by exposing a semiconductor element to light particularly in a polishing process using the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) is described. More specifically, a technology in which the semiconductor elements are shielded from light which causes a photoelectric effect to prevent the metal conductor from being electrochemically dissolved is described.